Review: Samsung’s new ARM Chromebook gets by without Intel inside

The $249 Chromebook delivers surprisingly good performance for the price.

Enlarge / Samsung's new Chromebook uses an ARM processor, but you may not notice the difference.

Andrew Cunningham

If you've used a smartphone or tablet at any point in the last five years or so, you have ARM to thank for it. The company doesn't actually manufacture any of its own chips, but it licenses its low-power CPU architectures and instruction sets to others like Samsung, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, and Apple, who all use the designs to build better battery life into tiny devices. The company isn't content with its niche, however: it has PCs and servers in its sights, and we're going to be seeing ARM chips in many more devices in the next year or two.

Samsung's recently announced ARM-based Chromebook is one of these devices: a laptop-shaped computer that uses a tablet-like processor. Using these low-power, low-cost CPUs is one reason why these new Chromebooks cost an impressive $249, rather than $449 like their current Intel-based counterparts. The biggest question is whether users of this new, cheaper Chromebook will care that they're not running Intel inside.

Hardware: Good enough, especially for $249

Enlarge/ The new Chromebook bears a more-than-coincidental resemblance with the MacBook Air when opened up.

Andrew Cunningham

Enlarge/ Compared to the MacBook Air in profile, however, it's considerably chunkier.

Andrew Cunningham

Samsung's new Chromebook should be more or less familiar to anyone who has used the Intel-based Series 550 model from earlier this year, though the latest model is slimmer (0.7 inches thin compared to 0.8) and lighter (2.42 pounds compared to 3.3). Both the screen and the base of the laptop are all plastic, and display a slight amount of flex under pressure, but considering the price the materials seem to fit together reasonably well. One jarring detail is its bulgy hinge, which isn't a problem when the laptop is open but which sticks out from the lid when it's closed, which is awkward if you're stacking anything on top of it.

Enlarge/ The new Chromebook's hinge bulges out from the top of the computer, which is pretty darn awkward.

Andrew Cunningham

Most of the laptop's ports are located on the back in my least favorite configuration: all crammed together right next to each other. As with other laptops that do this, using any USB cables or thumb drives that are significantly wider than the USB port itself blocks access to the neighboring port, and having no USB port available on either side of the laptop makes it more difficult to plug in and remove drives and accessories quickly. The power adapter also uses a thin, fragile-looking plug that worked fine for me but may not stand up to much horseplay.

The laptop has an HDMI port capable of 1080p output, one USB 2.0 port, and one USB 3.0 port on the back, along with an included USB Ethernet dongle for wired connectivity. It also has a small access port for a SIM card. Using the HDMI port, at least in the current Chrome OS software, is a bit iffy. For the one TV I had to test the laptop with, the Chromebook would output sound but not video, so if you're looking to this $249 Chromebook for its utility as a home theater PC, you may want to reconsider. Chrome OS also continues to lack an extended desktop mode for multi-monitor users.

The inclusion of USB 3.0 is nice and doesn't cost anything extra, since the Exynos 5 SoC supports it natively, but it's a bit superfluous in this particular laptop—the limited nature of Chrome OS means you won't be making many large file transfers. The laptop's SD card reader and headphone jack are located on the left side, while two loud-but-tinny stereo speakers are located on the bottom. On the inside, the laptop features dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0 for connectivity; there doesn't appear to be an option to utilize the available SIM card slot, though its presence indicates that mobile broadband may be available later.

Enlarge/ The MacBook Air comparisons continue: their black-on-silver keyboards are very similar.

Open the laptop's lid and you'll see a black chiclet keyboard with a common Chromebook layout. This includes browser navigation, brightness, volume, and power buttons across the top row instead of traditional function keys, an inverted T-block of half-height arrow keys, and a search key in place of caps lock. Fans of INTERNET YELLING can still choose to revert the search key's behavior to that of a caps lock key if desired. The keyboard is shallow, but the keys feel firm and anyone used to a chiclet keyboard from any other manufacturer should be able to type at full speed after a bit of acclimation.

Enlarge/ The new Chromebook, like past models, has a search key in place of the caps lock key by default.

Andrew Cunningham

Below the keyboard is a plastic multitouch trackpad that behaves well enough—basic gestures like tap to click, two-finger right-click, and two-finger scrolling work as intended (the two-finger scrolling is of the inverted, "natural" variety by default, though this can be reversed in the settings by disabling "simple scrolling"). Unfortunately, I found the trackpad's palm rejection to be less than fantastic. My cursor would routinely jump to earlier parts of documents I was working on, interrupting my flow and generally making a nuisance of itself.

Above the keyboard are an 11.6", 1366x768 display and a VGA webcam flanked by microphone pinholes. The screen's brightness is good but its contrast and viewing angles are terrible, as is to be expected in a computer this cheap. The vertical viewing angles are slightly worse than the horizontal, but they're both pretty bad—viewing the screen from anything other than dead-on makes the computer very difficult to use.

One of the nicer side effects of going with an ARM SoC is that the new Chromebook is completely fanless. As someone whose 2010 MacBook Air is routinely running its fans at full-tilt, I can say that a fanless system is conspicuously (and pleasantly) quiet by comparison. Its bottom does get a little warm during heavy use, but no warmer than most smartphones or tablets do, and certainly not enough to feel dangerous.

Software: Chrome OS is Chrome OS

Enlarge/ Chrome OS includes some new tutorials that demystify the operating system.

Andrew Cunningham

Like the Chrome browser, Chrome OS is being steadily developed, though changes tend to be gradual and often subtle. The biggest change to Chrome OS since its introduction was probably the Aura interface, which introduced true windowed multitasking back in April. Since then the changes have been mostly gentle touches and adjustments. The interface should be pretty simple to grasp for anyone who's used to the Windows 7 desktop, and the "Get Started" app (new since the last time I used Chrome OS) that launches automatically the first time you sign in should be enough to familiarize newcomers with Chrome OS' features.

Enlarge/ Chrome OS is a regular windowed operating system, when you get right down to it.

Andrew Cunningham

One thing about Chrome OS that has remained the same since its introduction is that its strength is also its weakness. Having a browser on top of lightweight Linux underpinnings makes for quick boot times, snappy performance, and an uncluttered interface. However, it also severely limits the device's functionality relative to a Windows PC, especially if you're not a heavy Google user. Having a Google account gets you built-in bookmark and data syncing with your desktops and a built-in (if lightweight) office suite in the form of Google Drive and Docs. If you're not already a Google and Chrome user on your regular computer, though, you're going to find the Chromebook very limiting, even as a companion computer.

The real story here is that Chrome OS runs well on ARM processors, and if you don't need the extra performance of the bigger Chromebook 550's dual-core Celeron, you won't even notice the difference. If you're coming from one of the older Intel Atom models, you're actually in for a sizable performance increase, especially when dealing with Flash and video.

Andrew Cunningham / Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue.